Digital

JAL and Uber have agreed to a strategic partnership to use the Uber ride-sharing service and food delivery service in North America and Hawaii on JAL app.

ANA Group will kick into gear to establish a Milage-based Ecosystem on its developing super app, launching ‘ANA X’ as a platform business company and ‘ANA Aknido’ as a local revitalization business company.

JAL and NEC will jointly demonstrate the face recognition precessing with a mask on at Kagoshima Airport and in Kirishima City until April 21 2021, testing how it works in travel experiences.

The Commons Project is progressing in Japan through partnership for Common Pass with Toho University and Ishinban to link PCR test result data at the Toho University Haneda Airport Clinic.

HIS's offering online tours have collected 50,000 or more participants in total since the product was launched in April 2020 to anchor people’s mind to restart overseas travels in the future.

Telecom Square has released a new free service to issue location certificate on its AR navigation app to meet requirement for travelers entering into Japan to save location information on selected map app for 14 days.

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) will launch ‘Next Generation Air Mobility Office, targeting Level 4 flight without visual contact for drone operation in FY2022 and commercialization for flying car in FY2023.

ANA will begin demonstration tests for IATA Travel Pass, a digital health passport app developed by IATA, on the selected international flights. IATA Travel Pass project is currently joined by 13 airlines in the world.

Google Travel opens free hotel booking links for every hotel and travel company, in addition to ad bidders, allowing them including independent hotels to deliver real-time prices and available rooms on their visibilities.

JAL will sell ‘New Travel Style’ to send travelers to Amami Islands in tie-ups with Kagoshima Prefecture, providing free PCR test before departure and ‘JAL Online Trip’ featuring the Islands.

Z Holdings with Yahoo Japan under its umbrella and LINE, the biggest communication app in Japan, completed the business integration of the two companies into new Z Holdings on March 1 2021 to become the biggest Internet service provider in Japan.

Japanese IT solution company Almex launches a TV system for a hotel management to grasp how a guest uses room facilities with its sensing technology, making a guest smart phone remote controllers for TV, air conditioner, lights or even room order.

JAL will reorganize its business structures into four divisions of Route Marketing, Passengers Sales and Marketing, Customer Experience and Mileage and Lifestyle Business divisions to promote digital transformation and to build a sustainable growth base for post-COVID-19.

The awareness of ‘Clubhouse,’ a talked-about audio communication app, is 37% on average, but the rate rises to 47% among 20s. The ratio of ‘I want to use it’ is 14% among 20s, much higher than 5% overall, according to the Cross Marketing’s survey.

The top two websites in the travel and transport category were ‘jalan.net' and ‘Rakuten Travel’ in the same manner as a year ago. TripAdvisor, JR East and Yahoo! Travel were among top five, but all of them reduced visitors by around 20% compared to a year ago amid the pandemic.

JTB is accelerating digital-based human-touch services in Tourism, Area Solution and Business Solution fields, shifting its selling channels from retailers or call centers to smart devices-oriented Online Mergers with Offline amid its digital transformation efforts.

Odawara Tourism Association in Kanagawa Prefecture has started selling online tour ‘Online Ninja Experience (ONE),' expecting that Ninja will be a tourism content to attract international travelers after the pandemic.

HIS has launched ‘TABIFLEEEEEK,’ a paid membership online community to create new travel services or products with ideas from the travel lover community and to seize demands after the pandemic.

JTB has developed ‘JTB MaaS API Gateway’ as a tourism-oriented MaaS software. The software provides travelers with seamless services from product search, booking and payment to mobility experience through API connection between the gateway and tourism operators’ apps.

JTB is enhancing the tourism platform function through a new partnership with BOUKUN, a TripAdvisor business unit for a management service of local tours or attractions. Also, JTB revealed introduction of ‘OLI’OLI Hawaii app’ for its customers traveling in Hawaii.